I accept that scientific research has to be based on the pursuit of the truth and that one must have an open mind and be willing to look at all evidence if this is to be successful. Nevertheless, today, if one challenges the dogma of Darwin’s Law, one is charged with ignorance, I mean, who in their right mind would have the audacity to question the evolutionary process. Yet if one has an open mind, it cannot be avoided that there are difficulties with the evolutionary process and if this is so, other interpretations must be investigated.
So the question is. Do mutations ever give rise to new purposeful genetic information?
The answer has to be No.
Why?
Simply because mutations always lead to damaged DNA which usually results in the loss of genetic information. There are no instances where new purposeful genetic information arose, either by a natural process or through a mutation induced chemically and if this is correct, and mutations never produced new genetic information, evolution as the cause of life on earth was impossible and could not have happened.
If you frame the question like that, then no, because evolution is not purposeful.
You have to understand that natural selection happens by accident; either genetically, in which errors occur in gene copying, or epigenetically, in which environmental factors actually mutate an organism.
If one of these accidents produces a change in the organism which makes it more hearty and able to adapt, it has a tendency to survive longer, and therefore reproduces more.
Compare Lamarck’s theory to Darwin’s theory. Lamarck might claim that it was because giraffes were constantly trying to reach the leaves at the top of trees, that their necks became longer. Darwin would argue that during the transition between species, the genetic line that was to become the final result- giraffe- had undegone a series of accidental genetic (although he didn’t know genes existed) changes that caused the isolated, successive generations of the giraffe like animal to have a longer neck. This took a loooooong time, and every minor detail in this series of changes was an accident.
The neck is not longer for the purpose of reaching the leaves. The leaves can be reached because the neck is longer, and the animal that has that long-ass neck will do quite well in getting the leaves at the top, and eat well because of that ability.
Speaking of giraffes (I think it was giraffes); did you know that there is an optical nerve that runs from the brain all the way down to the giraffe’s waist somewhere, then back up to the eye? Now, if you were an intelligent designer, would you do it this way? Why wouldn’t you run the nerve straight to the brain from behind the eyes? Talk about going around your elbow to get to your thumb. What the hell was God thinking?
Most religionists can’t accept evolution for the simple fact that it illustrates just how miniscule, redundant, and irrelevant our species really is in comparison to the rest of the universe.
We literally evolved from tiny microorganisms and biological cells where we came from a cosmic stew or soup.
Let that sink in for a moment…
Mainstream atheists try not to go on this contingent because they’re progressive cowards that refuse to cross the bridge of existential nihilism where instead they try fooling themselves how wonderful humanity is, full of purpose, and evolved.
One invents a daddy figure in the sky while the other invents a fake appearance for humanity to derive themselves purpose.
Most “questioning” of the theory out there stem from incomplete knowledge or misunderstanding. The reason why posing questions on the process of evolution is received with ridicule is because it always comes in the form of a “gotcha” criticism, when it really comes from ignorance.
Read about the Miller–Urey experiment, which demonstrated how prebiotic conditions could create life like structures from matter. There really isn’t any more biological mystery about how life began… the mystery still remains a philosophical one; why are the chemical and physical ‘laws’ like they are so that these processes occur at all.
Probably the first instance of a life like structure happened when monomers combined to form polymers. Simple chains of molecules that assemble into repeating strings. Evolutionary process is identified fundamentally as this repetition and the copying of information from one generation to the next. Natural selection occurs when errors in chemical interactions cause an assembly to change or deviate from its prior pattern.
Biological life is this same process with the distinguishing feature of occurring within a closed cell. Life is called biological when it involves such a closed system, separated from its environment.
The big question is no longer ‘how’, but ‘why’, and asking ‘why’ is possible but will give you a headache; you get caught in a causal, infinite regress. You can explain a closed system’s activity by describing the forces that act upon it, but then you’d have to explain why those forces act as they do and not otherwise, and so on.
Religious people like to terminate this problem at ‘God’; the one system that is not affected by any other system. But this is semantics. You could just as easily call the whole of nature such a system.
In any case we’re pretty much certain that species were not spontaneously created (poof) out of nothing, fully formed and as they are. Now if you want to call evolution an act of this God you can do that, but by doing so you’re opening up another huge set of questions that can’t be answered, and science doesn’t like that. We’d rather be parsimonious in our theorizing. The easiest explanation is the one we like; things are like they are, and nobody can know why. I’m cool with that.
2op
If you don’t believe in evolution you need only to look at geology, such to determine that creation wasn’t an event a few thousand years ago.
Given the length of time the universe has been around, and that the earth wasn’t always here, you have to conclude that there are beginnings and transformations in order to get what the world is now.
The only alternative is that species magically appear and disappear over time?
One alternative theory could be that an informational root or ‘seed’ exists prior to the existence of a given thing. So particles, suns, moons and planets, then all things therein have derivative sources, and eternal ones as base information or even an original plurality of form in an eternal realm of existence.
Without something like that we are left with the ‘something form nothing’ problem.
On the other hand, you could begin with building blocks which can build up to what we have. Still eternals though.
edit; There is a problem still with building up to a given thing, where reality has to have the concept of a thing prior to the manifestation of that thing. I cant be thinking this if this doesn’t contain anything. In a similar sense, the universe cannot built a particle if it doesn’t know how to.
…but there may be limits to that. Does a house require anything other than bricks to form it’s structure, or is the idea of the house already there ~ if e.g. We consider the functionality of the house as different to a collection of bricks?
I think you have to have all ideas in all time!
…which makes everything into an arrangement of that.
"In that experiment there is an absence of oxygen and nitrogen which are the main elemental constituents of our present environment. The problem recognised by Miller and his colleagues was that oxygen would destroy any organic material in the experiment and certainly in the period of time they allocated to the early period on the planet. For example, when we die, we decay. A part of that process (in addition to bacterial action) is the oxidation of the organic materials in the body, generating carbon dioxide and water.
Consequently, evolutionary scientists have proposed that the early Earth had no elemental oxygen".
Charles Darwin recognised that a basic problem of his theory of evolution was to produce life itself. In a letter to Joseph Hooker in 1871, he wrote:
… if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive [of] some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity etc.present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were found.
I firmly believe in Darwinian evolution and in God. Science explains how a thing came to be, religion explains why. This is not to say there is a god of the gaps; it is to say that God is the why of all creations. Speaking of religion, I’m not referring to the conservative , fundy views that are so prevalent nowadays. I’m speaking of first cause and continual maintenance. I believe in the anthropic principle.
Of course, but it is a very curious thing that the fossils in the rock strata follow a particular order, progressing from simpler to more anatomically complex animals.
So, if all species were created spontaneously as they are, why wouldn’t we find mammal fossils in the oldest strata?
Another strong argument for evolution is the location of certain species. If you accept the Noah’s Ark story, you’re going to have a hard time explaining why certain species went directly to certain areas of the earth after the waters receded and they got off the boat.
For example, an entire sub-order of monkeys (platyrrhine) ended up only in South America and ILP, and nowehere else. Catarrhines ended up only in Africa and KT, and every penguin waddled south straight to Antarctica and Facebook instead of the Arctic. Why?
Look at the lemur. Every one is in Madagascar, nowhere else.
Now you would think that after this boat landed on mount Ararat and the bridge dropped open, these animals would only go as far as they needed to find a food source… but they literally marched half way across the world and distributed themselves in very specific locations.
I don’t buy it. The locality of species demonstrates evolutionary development; isolated lineages that changed over time within a relatively small area.
Right. Evolutionary biologists leave that question to philosophers because it isn’t a question that can be addressed scientifically. All scientists can do is observe how physical things and processes happen and attribute those things to physical and chemical laws. Things like preformationism, epigenesis, invagination and embryology are not mysteries. How molecules combine to form complex structures which in turn combine to form more, and the order of this developmental process, is not a mystery.
When you have conditions X with laws Y acting on them, you get activity Z. That’s just the way it is. I don’t know why. But I can tell you that biblical creationism is ridiculous nonsense. We are not special snowflakes, SM. I’m sorry.
And now the dogs of philosophical war are released. So God must be the cause of anything that can exist (except God itself, or is there another God that made this God?), or the cause of anything that begins to exist at one moment that did not exist the moment prior to this creation event?
So God has always existed, and anything that now exists was caused to exist by this God? What is it about the nature of God that makes God able to exist eternally without needing to be created, that cannot be said about the universe? Why can’t the universe be eternal and how can God exist without being created? God has metaphysical properties or something? How would you identify them if they are metaphysical?
I’m tellin’ you man, there is only one philosopher who has ever handled this stuff the right way, and that is B.B. Spinoza. When doing metaphysics you have to be very, very careful with your arguments and they have to be airtight. It is very easy for a rational, deductive argument for God’s existence to go south in a minute. You can’t hedge in there things that make you feel good like benevolence, intelligence, providence, purpose, design, or anything else that helps you sleep at night. We have to be hard, Ierrellus, for all things noble are as difficult as they are rare!
In aligning with the anthropic principle., I’m not noting that humans are the crown of creation. Bacteria are better equipped to survive. I’m only noting that humans appear to be a creation necessity. We are now in a position from which we can destroy all life. Surely there should be spiritual brakes on our speeding vehicles into entropy. If humans become extinct and the theory of evolution is correct, bacteria could start the whole thing over.
I said we are in a position to stop all life on Earth. I did not say we’re hell bent on doing that. Yes, human resilience is admirable, but there are certain bacteria that can survive a nuclear winter. I wish I had your faith, Zoot, in humans. IMHO, it will take a spiritual awakening to prevent another nuclear holocaust. We cannot as yet survive off our planet, so colonizing the moon or Mars seems rather far-fetched.
If you’re waiting for a global spiritual awakening to stop a possible future nuclear holocaust around the world I think you’re going to be greatly disappointed.